1. Field
Aspects of the described technology relate generally to a substrate cutting apparatus and a method of cutting a substrate using the same. More particularly, aspects of the described technology relate generally to a substrate cutting apparatus and a method of cutting a substrate using the same, which are capable of effectively and stably cutting a glass substrate using a laser beam.
2. Description of the Related Art
A substrate cutting apparatus is used to cut a flat panel display, using a glass-based substrate as a base substrate, into a desired product size. Examples of a flat panel display include an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, a liquid crystal display (LCD), and so on. The flat panel display is advantageous in that it can be made thin, and a demand for increasingly thin displays has been gradually increasing. In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for a flat panel display using a relatively very thin glass substrate having a thickness of 0.3 mm or less.
In general, a substrate cutting apparatus is equipped with a CO2 laser (i.e., an infrared-based laser) and a cooling device to cut a transparent glass substrate. The substrate cutting apparatus is configured to instantly heat the glass substrate along a line that will be cut using the CO2 laser, thereby generating compression stress caused by the heat, and to instantly cool the heated portion using the cooling device, thereby generating tensile stress. If such a heat impact is applied to the glass substrate, a micro-crack is generated in the glass substrate, thereby causing the glass substrate to be cut.
However, a decrease in the thickness of the glass substrate makes it difficult to stably cut the glass substrate by smoothly generating a crack due to stress caused by a difference in the temperature. This is the same principle whereby a thin glass cup is rarely broken even by hot water. Accordingly, a conventional substrate cutting apparatus is problematic in that it cannot easily cut a flat panel display using a relatively very thin glass substrate in line with the demand for increasingly thin displays.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the described technology, and may include information that was not known in this country to others before the applicants made their invention, and thus does not constitute prior art.